Matthew J. Smith

Matthew J. Smith is a Professor of History at University College London (UCL) and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Previously, he held the position of Professor of Caribbean History at the University of the West Indies, Mona (Jamaica), and served as Chair of its Department of History and Archaeology. His research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century histories of Haiti and Jamaica, with expertise in post-slavery societies, radical politics, and migration. He directs the 2018 documentary The Past Is Not Our Future: Walter Rodney’s Student Years and is currently writing a social history of Jamaican popular music.

He has held prestigious fellowships and visiting roles at Duke University, the National Humanities Center, and Williams College. His grants include leadership in AHRC-funded projects analyzing Caribbean food systems through historical lenses. He teaches the MA module Public History, Slavery, and the British Colonial Past and is a frequent media commentator on Caribbean politics and culture.

His awards include the Sterling A. Brown Visiting Professorship and the Rodney-Dubois-Mandela Fellowship. He co-edited The Jamaica Reader (2021) and authored Liberty, Fraternity, Exile (2014) and Red and Black in Haiti (2009), which examine post-slavery intersections between Haiti and Jamaica and radical political movements in Haiti.